The Pile of Boats in My Yard

Gail E. Ferris



It has been an embarrassing situation for me these last few months which 
I have been trying to hide beneath a large piece of plastic and a 
slightly smaller but still huge piece of innocently camouflaging piece 
of beige cloth.  It has been seeming to be similar to the moment when I 
put my trash barrel out on the street for trash collection filled from 
top to bottom with "booze" bottles.  I happened to not accumulated any 
other form of trash for the previous several months and had been 
neglecting to put the trash out until I had no more space to cram any 
more of those naughty bottles in the barrel.  I can well imagine what my 
neighbors were thinking about what appeared to be the sole component of 
my diet and that perhaps my solitary life had driven me to this extreme 
point of dietary simplification.

Well somehow a few years ago I had the premonition that I was going to 
sooner or later be the owner of a "no doubt about it" diverse collection 
of water craft.  But not only do I have this precariously balanced pile 
of boats in my yard, I have boats piled in my living room and some 
others scattered about here and there.

Now I think I have reached the point where they are haunting me.  I find 
that I am having increasingly greater difficulty trying to choose which 
boat to go on the water with. Once I am on the water my mind begins to 
wander as I cryptically evaluate conditions and pragmatically match them 
to my collection.  I find that I am thinking to myself "Well if I were 
in my ------------- I could be over there doing ------------.  Gee, I 
wish I was using that other boat."  

Well this afternoon while all this cacophony was going on in my head I 
found that I was not doing very well at paddling my white water kayak.  
I had taken this boat out today because I knew that I should sharpen my 
paddling skills by practicing English gates. What was happening was that 
in my preoccupation with what seemed as a dilemma I was not paying any 
attention to how best to paddle the kayak.  I had learned paddling 
technique from Bart Hauthaway.

With paddling technique he taught a very important concept which is that 
you have to feel the boat respond and you have to feel the boat react to 
the water when you make a stroke.  You have to lean and counter lean on 
turns.  So what was I doing?  I was paddling flat and fighting the boat, 
two cardinal sins.

As I reminded myself to practice leaning in turns and let the boat 
respond to my strokes the turns became much more graceful and more 
effortless.  Good paddling is effortless and has a special grace and 
beauty in a white water kayak.

I then decided to head out across the harbor for a marsh, a mile away.  
Padding in a straight line in a white water kayak in open water is not 
like paddling a skegged sea kayak.  I recalled the important paddling 
technique which is also used in white water canoes which also have a 
large amount of rocker like the white water kayak.  The most important 
aspect of paddling a rockered boat straight is to keep the paddle 
strokes short such that they do not go past the paddler's waist.  In sea 
kayaking I use often much longer strokes because that is what feels best 
with the wave pattern at the time.

I carefully paid attention to keeping my paddling strokes short and the 
paddle angle fairly vertical while concentrating on pushing from the top 
and leaning into the wind driven waves.  The crossing required very few 
corrective strokes by contrast to my earlier fight with the boat and 
myself.

Once I was paddling up the estuary in the marsh the kayak started to 
show her stuff. The out going current was no problem for this kayak.  
This kayak was designed for fast moving water and the bow did not try to 
nose off in the current and head back down stream.

Then I came upon a chute with water pouring out of it at a good rate 
which emptied into a pool.  I looked apprehensively at it and thought "I 
do not feel comfortable about trying to climb up that chute because if 
something happens to me I do not feel comfortable about being in trouble 
alone in this December water.  I will work on doing turns and leans with 
the current and I will see how far I can climb this chute but I will not 
take any foolish chances which are beyond my skills."  So I worked with 
the rushing water going from eddy to current to eddy, practicing 
crossing with high brace and low brace and when I thought I had spent 
enough time practicing I headed home.

This was an eventful afternoon and I briefly wished that I had taken my 
Klepper out sailing or my Arluk out to play in the rips but I was more 
than glad that I had spent my time in my white water kayak because it 
showed me something.  I realized that each of the boats I have has a 
special design to be best used in specific water conditions but I bought 
them all to teach me some of the many aspects about water and it's 
hydraulics.  Most important for me to develop sufficient paddling skills 
so that I will know when I am paddling either alone or with others what 
my skills are as a paddler.

Paddling a sea kayak, a white water kayak, a white water canoe with soft 
chines, a white water canoe with hard chines, rowing sliding seat open 
water scull, and sailing a Klepper all require some utilization of 
specific technique which is part of the challenge of being a diverse 
boater.

I'm glad I own that pile of boats.  That same size pile could easily be 
just one boat it would be a mound of the same dimension. 

12/22/91

Gail E. Ferris, 1 Bowhay Hill, Stony Creek, CT 06405